He loved with everything he had. He knew that about himself; knew it was because time was too short to hold anything back. He had lived through a lot of time, had seen how quickly it passed for others without their knowledge. He had come to understand that reticence was wounding, that people deserved the fullest existence they could grasp. One at a time, he brought that painful, blade-edged bliss to those who were his lovers. They only remained his lovers for the length of time they could endure his intensity.

While he enjoyed the dilation of pupils in eyes of any color the first time they caught a glimpse of how he saw the universe – every light brighter, every shadow darker, every sound and color and scent sharper and more brilliant – he was also tired of seeing the exhausted droop of eyelashes when this view became too much. He was tired of having them walk away from him, choosing to return to a world where the colors were muted and melted and lovers were less wild. He started walking away while it was still good if he had any reason to suspect they wouldn’t last. It was easier that way for everyone involved.

He was beginning to want something more, someone who could match him in passion and power and endurance, someone who was strong enough to be the kind of gentle he needed for more than a night, a week, a month, a year. It had been that craving for an equal mate that had first drawn him to the woman with the cool hands, the red hair, and the green eyes that held his unflinchingly. She was an alpha, and he had sensed that. He’d needed that, until he realized that she was only strong enough to be gentle with one man, and that man was not him.

She didn’t want him for the way he gave without reserve; she wanted him for the way he took, took without hesitation or regret, took without leaving anything behind. He took in a way her lover had not yet learned to do. But she was the only one he’d seen who matched his strength, and he’d been mostly willing to settle for half of what he needed; it was better than nothing. And maybe if she cut her boy toy loose, he could be the one man who got everything she had to give.

It took seven years, eleven months, and twenty-three days for him to admit that it would never happen. He wondered sometimes, when he was feeling philosophical and pensive, if fate had been waiting for him to release that fantasy before it gave him what he’d been searching for. Or maybe it was all a coincidence after all.

It was the night he had almost coaxed Jean past the passionate kisses she sometimes gave in to; the night she almost came into his bed, into his arms; the night his hand had slid under the waistband of her skirt and she’d clenched her trembling fingers in his hair so hard she’d actually pulled a little of it out. He’d thought then that this was It, that he’d finally found the one woman that wouldn’t fade.

He’d thought it right up until the moment she put her swollen lips next to his ear and whispered with hot breath the words that brought it all tumbling down. Oddly enough, it was a phrase that, from anyone else, would have spurred him on. But this time he didn’t want someone for what she could do to his body or what he could do to hers. This time he’d thought he might have found a kindred heart to beat in the empty space alongside his.

That one smooth directive, delivered with such promise, had shattered his delusion, and he’d pulled back from her swiftly, sharply. She hadn’t understood, her nails still anchored in his scalp, tugging him back toward her. He’d smiled a little sadly, knowing that the pain in his chest and his eyes had to be palpable to her, even without her telepathy. He’d shaken his head, just a little, and confusion had rippled visibly through the skin around her eyes and across her forehead.

Without a word, he’d planted a final, chaste kiss on her beautiful lips and left the room. He was headed for a place that knew him, knew his standing order for love on the rocks, straight razors, and a whiskey chaser.

She was already there when he arrived, her auburn hair a shade further toward ginger-brown than Jean’s was, the white strands haphazardly raked back by hands that could not stop their movements. Pain shone in eyes that were a brighter, deeper green than he remembered, and that couldn’t be right, because he always noticed things, and somehow he’d missed that. Missed the color of his best friend’s eyes.

He bumped her shoulder when he slid onto the bar stool beside her, eliciting a stifled gasp and a soft greeting.

“What’re you havin’?” he murmured, and she sighed back.

“Anything but bourbon.”

His gaze locked onto her profile, but he didn’t speak. One suede glove lay in her lap, unmolested, while the other was being removed, replaced, obsessively smoothed. Finally her bare fingers danced toward her empty glass, squeaking softly down the condensation on the side of it.

“Two whiskeys,” he signaled the bartender, who nodded silently.

“Make mine a belladonna,” she whispered bitterly, and he regarded her with a sharp glance.

Their drinks were set down in front of them, but when Rogue didn’t make a move towards hers for a while, Logan finally ventured gruffly, “Wanna tell me what’s goin’ on, darlin’?”

“You wouldn’t wanna hear it,” she shrugged, although the protest was half-hearted at best.

“Let me be the judge of that,” he suggested, sipping his whiskey and savoring the smoky flavor in his mouth.

“I… I don’t know what to do,” she finally managed, her eyes still focused on her bare fingertips moving mindlessly on the polished bar. “I still love him. I think I always will… but I’m not sure I want to.” Finally, her gaze flickered to his face for just a moment, and he read guilt in her expression. “Is that wrong?”

“Whaddya mean?” he prompted gently.

“Gambit. Remy. We’re over, we gotta be. I mean, what kinda relationship can ya have with someone ya don’t trust?” Tears were beginning to well up in her eyes and voice. “And I’m still in love with him, I feel it, but… it’d be such a relief if I wasn’t.”

Logan was startled at how well her words echoed the feelings inside himself that he hadn’t quite been able to put a finger on.

“An’ isn’t true love supposed to be forever?” she continued. “What kinda person does that make me if I give up now? Does it mean I never loved him at all?”

Furrowing his brow slightly and taking a deep breath to help him straighten out his thoughts, Logan twisted his shot glass around between blunt fingertips, noticing out of the corner of his eye when Rogue finally picked hers up and tossed half of it back, blinking against the burn and the tears already in her eyes.

“I don’t know, darlin’,” he finally answered. “I think maybe sometimes you just gotta cut ‘em loose, for your own sake.”

Slowly setting her half-empty glass back down on the bar, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, deliberately dragging the naked skin across her lips. He knew sometimes she just took whatever touch she could get. Her eyes found his and held them for endless moments before she finally confessed in a throaty whisper, “I don’t know if I can.”

He smelled the torment on her, the heartbreak and desperation, and it matched something in his own scent. The pain of not being strong enough to hold on, but not having the strength to let go either. And he knew, he knew then, that if he was any friend at all, he’d get her out of that bar before she broke down crying in front of everyone there. She’d cry in front of him, she’d done it before, but it would humiliate her to break wide open in front of strangers… or friends. The mansion was out of the question as well.

“Darlin’,” he said, surprised at how rough his voice sounded and blaming it on the whiskey, “You wanna get outta here?”

“I thought you’d never ask, sugar,” she joked, trying for a brave smile that didn’t quite make it, and he was sure he’d never seen her eyes that bright before. She was all the wrong kind of beautiful at that moment, and it hurt him to see her like that – eyes sparkling (with unshed tears), cheeks flushed (with a turmoil of emotions), hair tousled (from hands that were too nervous), lips full and trembling (from trying not to cry).

He could feel the sorrow rolling off her like physical pain, and as she slid from her stool to stand beside him, he slipped an arm around her shoulder and rubbed soothingly, hoping he could ease the ache. “C’mon, baby,” he murmured into her hair as he pressed a kiss to her head. “Let’s go somewhere.”

She nestled into him, one ungloved hand sliding around his waist and catching the belt loop on his opposite hip, allowing him to pull her close. He knew that she trusted him like she trusted no one else. She’d told him, the Professor had told him, and anybody with eyes in their head could see that she did. For Rogue, touch that she did not initiate equaled trust. It was a form of giving over control, and he knew that sometimes it was a relief to be able to let that slide. He understood what it was like to have to keep a tight rein on your own body and emotions to keep from hurting other people, to keep from being hurt.

“Somewhere” turned out to be a hotel a few miles away where they got a small suite, broke into the mini-bar, and called down for more a little while later. They drank and she cried as he held her, stroking her head and face through her hair, her body through her clothes. She talked a little, in broken whispers, about things that she remembered and loved and hated about her former lover. He knew what she was doing and envied her: she was letting go.

She fell asleep on the couch with her head cradled on his chest, and when he awoke from his light doze sometime late in the night, he realized that her neck was at an awkward angle. Smiling a little and pressing a soft kiss to the crown of her head, he shifted her until he could lift her with ease, then carried her to the bed and deposited her gently in the center. He smoothed her hair back from her face, pulled a blanket up over her hips and was about to go back to the couch when her hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. She’d put her gloves back on in the middle of their drinking binge, saying she didn’t trust herself to remember she wasn’t wearing them, and the warm suede rasped softly against his skin.

“Don’t go, sugar,” she whispered, and her sleep-roughened voice rubbed across his senses with much the same texture as her glove across his hand. “Please.”

He hesitated, fear warring with his desire to comfort her. If touch was Rogue’s expression of trust, sleep was his. He didn’t fall asleep in bed with other people. But he trusted Rogue, somehow. Trusted her more than he did himself, and he thought if she could feel safe sleeping with him, if she could ignore her skin long enough for that, then maybe he could ignore his nightmares and his claws.

While he was still standing, indecision plainly on his face, she gave him a half-smile and murmured, “Come on. If you skewer me, I’ll just suck you dry, and we’ll call it even.”

He chuffed out a small laugh and slipped under the blanket beside her, curling his arms around her as she turned onto her side, facing away from him. Her hands, in those roughly silken gloves, crossed over his forearm and she sighed deeply as sleep crept back over her. Closing his eyes and relaxing with a conscious effort, Logan did the same.

---

It surprised him to wake up and find someone in his arms. It surprised him even more when that someone was already awake, watching him. He suspected it had been the feeling of her eyes on him that had drawn him out of unconsciousness. “Mmph,” he grunted as a substitute for “Good morning.”

“Mm,” she answered in much the same tone, blinking at him sleepily. “Gawd, Logan, Ah think mah head’s gonna explode,” she finally managed hoarsely, dropping her head to his chest and whimpering.

He almost smiled at her. Her accent always thickened when she had a hangover. It was kind of cute.

“An’ stop smirkin’, you smug bastard,” she reprimanded without raising her head. “Just because you’re impervious to alcohol don’t mean you can tease me.”

“You mean invulnerability doesn’t cover alcohol poisonin’?” he teased, pitching his voice low in a gesture of compassion.

“Ah wish,” she sighed, and he felt her body drift into sleep and then out again a few times before she spoke again. “So what were you doin’ at the lonely hearts club last night?”

“Came to hear the band,” he shrugged, and she slapped him lightly with her fingertips, too lazy to make the effort required to do it properly.

“Truth,” she insisted. “No bullshit.”

He took a deep breath and absently began rubbing circles on the back of Rogue’s shoulder with his fingertips as he tried to gather his thoughts into a reasonable explanation. How could he explain to someone else what he didn’t entirely understand himself? That he’d thought the passion between him and Jean had been the kind of wonderful chaos that he was looking for… that he’d been looking for a relationship (and who would believe that, coming from the Wolverine?) and all she’d wanted had been a quick fuck. That it would have made him sick to see her wiping the taste of him from her mouth, straightening her skirt, fixing her lipstick and smoothing her hair as she prepared to go back to Scott with Logan’s fingerprints on her inner thighs, when what he really wanted was to wake up beside her for the rest of his life.

He didn’t think anyone would believe or understand that, but if anyone stood a chance, it would be Rogue. “I wanted more than she could give,” he finally stated, and she lifted her head to give him a sad smile of understanding.

“Yeah,” she whispered. “Ah know that feelin’.”

She laid her head back down, pressing her cheek into his breast bone, and he’d fully expected her to go back to sleep when he heard her murmur, “Logan?”

“Yeah, darlin’?”

“How come we never fell in love? You and me.”

“Whaddya mean?” he asked gently, his hand massaging lightly between her shoulder blades.

She shrugged a little, and he felt the uncertainty in her body. “Ah d’know… just a question.”

He pondered it for a moment, continuing his warm touches over her back and shoulders, occasionally stroking her hair. “It’s a good question, darlin’,” he finally admitted. “Just a bad time to be askin’ it.”

She nodded, the motion rubbing the soft flannel of his shirt into his chest. “When you get ready to answer, you just let me know,” she yawned, and he smiled, cupping the back of her head gently in his large palm.

“Will do.”

The End